OMV Petrom will not pay the new solidarity contribution, established by GEO 186/December 28, 2022, as the threshold of 75% of the turnover of the activities that are the subject of the ordinance has not been reached, company officials said on Thursday, within the conference for the presentation of the financial results for the year 2022.
Instead, the company will institute a special dividend by the middle of the year, company officials say. Since the company’s shareholding also includes the Romanian state, which owns 20.7% of shares, part of these dividends will also go to the state budget. OMV Aktiengesellschaft owns about 51.16% of the shares, and about 28% is owned by private investors.
“We will offer special dividends. We haven’t set the amount yet, we will do it in mid-2023…The board’s proposal is to increase the basic dividend by 10%, and on top of that, for the second year in a row, we propose to offer a special dividend,” said representatives of OMV Petrom.
Asked by Energynomics what the conditions will be under which the special dividend will be adopted, Alina Popa, CFO, said:
“We will see the evolution of prices and costs, our financial performance for the coming months – this is the first element. Second, equally important – we will progress towards the final investment decision of the Neptun Deep project, the largest project in our history, with a significant impact on the company. We will have better estimates than currently on the costs of this project, and we will also follow the evolution of the legislative changes that will take place in Romania in the coming months. Based on all these elements and our financial position, we will make an analysis and announce in the middle of the year the board’s proposal for a special dividend.”
The Government has already received a note from the European Commission, which stipulates that OMV Petrom does not have to pay the new tax, imposed by GEO 186/December 28, 2022, as the threshold of 75% of the turnover has not been reached. The Ministry of Finance had a different interpretation, but the experts consulted by Energynomics said as early as Tuesday that the interpretation of the law according to the Commission of the Ministry of Finance cannot win the case.
Following the announcement of the company’s financial results, SNP shares listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange appreciated slightly on Thursday, February 2, reaching a value of 0.4685 lei/share (+0.21%) around 1.00 pm. Also, the titles have grown steadily since January 31, when it was clear to investors, following the recommendation received by the Government from the European Commission, that OMV Petrom will not pay the new solidarity tax. Moreover, OMV Petrom representatives say that in Romania there is a very high level of overtaxation, including through new taxes introduced in 2022, and all these contributions must be taken into account if it is decided to introduce a solidarity tax.
“The level of additional taxes paid by OMV Petrom, from 2013 until now, was of about 6 billion lei,” OMV Petrom officials added.
For the year 2022, the company’s state budget contribution was 20 billion lei, a record level.
At the same time, the impact of the fuel subsidy of 50 bani per liter, which includes 50% of the company’s voluntary contribution, produced a cost of 470 million lei in 2022, company officials told Energynomics.
